Abstract

Natural fibre composites are potentially used as low load bearing material in building infrastructure industry. Forthis targeted applications, the ability to inhibit fire are strongly suggested to be most priority for these materials. Common method incorporating fire retardant (FR) agent is by adding it during the mixing process between fibre and matrix or by using FR compounded resin. However, there are fewer works on applying FR agent to the reinforcement directly (especially on hemp fabric) and effect of this treated reinforcement in composite material. Thus, in this work, a commercial FR was used to treat woven hemp fabric (WHF) in order to enhance its FR properties and these properties were characterised employing burning, thermo-gravimetry and limiting oxygen index tests. This treated WHF was then converted into composite by means of vinyl ester resin, and similar tests as mentioned before were done in order to determine composite’s FR properties. Based on the results, utilising WHF treated with FR can be used to enhance FR properties of hemp fabric reinforced vinyl ester (HVE) composite. Thus, this procedure can be used as an alternative method to produce FR composite materials.